A Word, Please: Plenty of misinformation is among us
Hereâs a sentence I used in a recent column: âNote the difference between a plural, a possessive, and a plural possessive.â
See anything funny about it? Two readers did. Both wrote to tell me that the word âbetweenâ should be âamong.â Thus, they said, I made a mistake.
Did I?
Iâve spent a lot of years researching word-choice issues. For most, my process goes like this: 1. Realize itâs an issue. 2. Look it up. 3. Write about it. 4. Forget what I learned. 5. Repeat.
The âamongâ vs. âbetweenâ issue is different. I donât forget this one because itâs attached to a rather awkward memory that years later still makes me cringe a little.
I was in an unfamiliar place in an inhospitable climate doing something that felt pretty unnatural: sitting down to dinner with more than one person. Weirder yet, these strange creatures who couldnât pronounce the word âparkâ and spoke of mysterious objects like âice scrapersâ and âBelichicksâ were soon to become my family. Legal-like.
Scary, right?
It gets worse.
My mental resources already stretched to their limits by spinach-in-teeth-type worries, one of these folks, letâs call her âM in L,â shared with me one of her pet grammar peeves: confusion of âbetweenâ and âamong.â Then, for the others at the table, she restated the simple fact that âbetweenâ is for relationships of just two people or things. âAmongâ is for groups of three or more.
Thus, a pie that is divided âbetween Joe and Sueâ would be divided âamong Joe, Sue and Bob.â
The brief lecture was punctuated with an âIsnât that right, June?â as a dozen pairs of Guinness-lit eyeballs landed on me.
So I did what any survival-minded future family member would do: I stuffed my mouth full of oyster crackers and muttered something that sounded (as do all words spoken with a mouth full of oyster crackers) like âMumford.â
It was a close call. Had this incident occurred in any region that doesnât begin every meal with a chowder course, hereâs what I would have been forced to say: Um, no. Thatâs not right.
The myth that âbetweenâ canât refer to more than two things is pretty ubiquitous. Strunk and Whiteâs âThe Elements of Styleâ is a big part of the problem: The among-vs.-between distinction was one of William Strunkâs instructions for his Cornell students handing in their papers. Strunkâs classroom rule landed in the book and thus, to this day, is mistaken for a real grammar rule.
The Associated Press Stylebook also says to observe the distinction. And anyone who doesnât fully understand the role of a stylebook could mistake the guideline for a grammar rule.
Itâs not.
âThere is a persistent but unfounded notion that âbetweenâ can be used only of two items and that âamongâ must be used for more than two,â writes Merriam-Websterâs Collegiate Dictionary. ââBetweenâ has been used of more than two since Old English; it is especially appropriate to denote a one-to-one relationship, regardless of the number of items. It can be used when the number is unspecified (economic cooperation between nations), when more than two are enumerated (between you and me and the lamppost) (partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia â Nathaniel Benchley), and even when only one item is mentioned (but repetition is implied) (pausing between every sentence to rap the floor.)â
Other authorities, including âGarnerâs Modern American Usageâ and âFowlerâs Modern English Usage,â agree.
So youâre welcome to use âbetweenâ as a synonym for âamongâ if you like. But, dear column readers, letâs just keep this between us.
JUNE CASAGRANDE is author of âIt Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences.â She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.